Social Psychological Correlates Of Occupational Conditio

该项目调查社会环境条件如何影响老年人的心理功能。它测试的假设是，随着年龄的增长，社会结构决定的环境条件，如复杂性如何影响认知功能，自主自我导向的方向和一个人对自己和自己的情况以及身心健康的感受。这些数据来自于1964年对707名受访者的后续调查，这些受访者最初是作为调查职业条件如何影响心理功能的全国代表性样本的一部分而选择的。今年发表的一篇论文中的研究结果表明，在整个生命周期中，进行非常复杂的休闲活动既会影响智力灵活性，也会受到智力灵活性的影响。因此，闲暇活动提供了环境影响智力功能稳定性的机制之一。在其他分析中，我们调查了应对健康和财务问题的反应。我们发现，虽然这两种类型的压力源的情绪反应的结构是相似的，应对机制的影响不同：财务相关的应对机制似乎会影响整体的困扰，而一些健康相关的应对机制影响特定的健康状况的积极反应。在另一组分析中，我们已经表明，掌握，智力灵活性和自信对健康有可靠的影响;此外，健康对自信有相互影响。当我们分析这些变量对残疾相关困难的长期影响时，我们发现：1）这些变量在20年的时间内影响残疾程度，2）这些变量的影响对于涉及角色功能的环境要求之间的差距和无法满足的残疾比涉及身体动作的功能限制更明显。

This project investigates how socio-environmental conditions affect the psychological functioning of the elderly. It tests hypotheses about how, as one grows older, social-structurally determined environmental conditions such as complexity affect cognitive functioning, autonomous self-directed orientations and one's feelings about oneself and one's circumstances as well as mental and physical health. The data come from a follow-up survey of 707 respondents originally selected in 1964 as part of a nationally representative sample picked for an investigation of how occupational conditions affect psychological functioning. Findings in a paper published this year demonstrate that having substantively complex leisure time activities both affects and is affected by intellectual flexibility throughout the lifespan. Leisure time activities thus provide one of the mechanisms through which the environment affects the stability of intellectual functioning. In other analyses,we have investigated coping responses to health and financial problems. We have found that although the structure of emotional responses to these two types of stressor are similar, the effects of coping mechanisms differ: financially related coping mechanisms appear to affect overall distress, whereas some health-related coping mechanisms affect positive reactions specific to health status. In another set of analyses, we have shown that mastery, intellectual flexibility and self-confidence have reliable effects on health; in addition, health has a reciprocal effect on self-confidence. When we analyzed the long-term effects of these variables on disability-related difficulties we found that: 1) these variables affect level of disability over a 20-year period, and 2) the effects of these variables are more pronounced for disabilities involving gaps between and inability to fulfill the environmental demands of role functions than for functional limitations involving physical actions.